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My name is Cetricia Rockhold, and I am currently a financial aid counselor at the University of Texas at Austin. Upon completion of my Master of Education in Student Development & Leadership, I hope to work in a more interactive role with students on the campus.

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Step 2: Option 1- Interview wi Top 5 Legal/Ethical Issues According to Zanne Coone

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Step 2: Option 1- Interview wi Top 5 Legal/Ethical Issues According to Zanne Coone

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I interviewed Zanne Coone, the senior Financial Aid Officer at the University of Texas at Austin.  Mrs. Coone has worked in a variety of student affairs administrator positions  for the past 8 years.  Below, are the top five legal/ethical issues that she often witnesses.

1. FERPA: FERPA is the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act of 1974 that protects the privacy of a student's records by requiring prior consent before disclosing information specific to the student's file.   We often have parents call in to our call center pretending to be the student or simply trying to make inquiries on behalf of the student without a FERPA release.

2. Medical Withdraw Effects on SAP: Student's SAP Pace & Maximum Timeframe scores are still effected when medically withdrawing.  While the student has the opportunity to complete a SAP appeal, many students & parents are frustrated with this systematic error.

3. Selective Service Requirement: In order to be eligible for aid, males students over the age of 18 are required to be registered for selective service & provide documentation.  There has been several instances of backlash due to the exemption of this requirement for transitioning transgender students & personal opinions on equal treatment for both males & females.

4. Work-study Students in the Work Place: Our office employs 15 work-study students who have access to student records. This can be problematic due to maturity & privacy situations.

5.Incomplete Training: The training that is provided for workers is often rushed & not thorough. Workers often have to "learn as you go." This in turn effects customer care.

(Coone, Z. Personal communications, March 23, 2019)

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Another legal/ethical issue that is currently in headlines & is having a significant impact on campus is the hazing scandal that was initially investigated in September of 2018. The topic of organizational hazing has been consistent throughout the last twenty years. There have been various policies set in place to prevent these situations; however, hazing remains a significant issue on the college campus.

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The University of Texas has suspended the Texas Cowboys, a spirit group best known for firing "Smokey the Cannon" at home football games, for six years following an investigation into hazing at a retreat the night before a new member was grievously injured in a wreck on the way back to Austin.

The suspension, along with a two-year probationary period after reinstatement, was handed down Wednesday by UT's dean of students office. The Cowboys have the option of accepting the sanction, appealing or requesting a formal hearing, according to a partially redacted copy of UT's discipline report obtained by the American-Statesman under the Texas Public Information Act. The university said the group violated rules that prohibit hazing, behavior threatening health or safety and alcohol misconduct.

"New members of the Cowboys were subjected to multiple forms of hazing, including physical brutality, physical activity, forced ingestion of unwanted substances, coerced consumption of alcohol and degradation," the report said.

Nicholas Cumberland, a 20-year-old majoring in business, finance and radio-television-film, was traveling in a pickup with other members of the Cowboys on Sept. 30 when it rolled over in Lampasas County after the retreat on a private ranch in Brown County. He was ejected from the vehicle and died four weeks later.

This is the second time a harsh penalty has been handed down to the Cowboys, whose members since its inception in 1922 have gone on to prominent positions in government, business and civic life. UT disbanded the group for five years after Gabe Higgins, 19, drowned in the Colorado River in 1995 following what school officials said were hours of alcohol-fueled hazing.

Shawn Cumberland, the father of Nicholas, had called on UT officials to suspend the group temporarily, open its membership to women, raise its academic standards and make opposition to hazing part of its motto and core functions.

"What I learned is that at that off-site event Nicky's pants were dropped down and he was paddled so hard that my wife and I in the hospital four weeks later still saw the marks from his back side from this," Cumberland told state lawmakers considering stiffer anti-hazing legislation this month. He also said a member of the group bit the head off of a live hamster at the urging of other members.

Hazing is illegal under state law, and it also violates UT policies that can draw a range of sanctions, including the permanent shutdown of a student group and the expulsion of students involved in the activity. Asked whether any disciplinary action is being taken against members of the group, school officials said the university does not comment on student discipline.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee voted 5-1 Tuesday to approve a measure that would expand the definition of hazing to include coercion of a student to consume an alcoholic beverage or a drug. The bill would also make it illegal to take someone's phone or other device to keep the person from documenting a hazing incident. In addition, it would require schools to post reports on hazing incidents and discipline meted out to the organizations involved. Senate Bill 38, authored by Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, now goes to the full upper chamber. A similar proposal, House Bill 1482, was approved 10-1 Tuesday by the House Higher Education Committee.

William Furst, a senior at UT and foreman - in effect, president - of the Cowboys, told the American-Statesman in January that three members of the Cowboys were suspended from the organization and four were expelled after a unanimous vote by the group's judiciary board, composed of students and alumni. He said the Cowboys were committed to becoming a campus leader in striving to abolish hazing and in emphasizing the importance of wearing seat belts. Cumberland and three others in the back seat of the pickup were not wearing seat belts.

It was not immediately clear whether the firing of Smokey after Longhorn scores at home football games would continue. The cannon is owned by the UT athletics department.

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UT suspends Texas Cowboys for 6 years for hazing

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The University of Texas has suspended the Texas Cowboys - a spirit group best known for firing "Smokey the Cannon" at home football games - for six years after an investigation into hazing at a retreat the night before a new member was fatally injured in a wreck on the way back to Austin.The suspension, along with a two-year probationary period after reinstatement, was handed down Wednesday by UT's dean of students office.

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A legal/ethical issue that is currently in headlines & having a direct impact on staff & students is the Admissions scandal that arose two weeks ago.

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Acting outside the normal admissions process. A back door for the rich and powerful. Secret favoritism.

No, it's not the college admissions scandal that broke this week.

That's how former Regent Wallace Hall once described the process powerful Texas lawmakers used to circumvent normal admission procedures in an effort to get their own kids and constituents into the University of Texas at Austin.

In an interview this week, Hall said he wasn't surprised that UT-Austin was tied to a nationwide investigation that pointed to a different kind of back door - and one university officials have condemned: allegations of outright bribery designed to secure admission into Texas' most prestigious state university.

Although it's an extreme example of the lengths connected parents will go to get their kids into UT-Austin, Hall said UT System administrators - despite reforms made in 2015 - don't have the appropriate safeguards in place to ensure the wealthy and powerful can't short-circuit the normal admissions process.

"Politicians who take money and free dinners from people and then get their kids into universities are engaging in the same quid pro quo arrangements as the guy who got caught taking cash for the same service," Hall told The Texas Tribune. "If a hotline was opened for whistleblowers to turn in cheaters, it would be flooded because everybody knows who cheated."

Representatives of both UT-Austin and the UT System declined to respond at length to Hall's criticisms but said the system long ago took steps to address any flaws in its admissions procedures.

Hall made his comments a few days after federal investigators laid bare the mechanics of a nationwide college admissions fraud in which parents paid bribes to guarantee their children admission to elite schools using rigged standardized test scores or false athletic bona fides.

The students and universities connected to the probe, which include UT, Yale and the University of Southern California, have not been charged by federal prosecutors.

But the scandal's reverberations have already led to firings and the filing of a new class-action lawsuit, which accuses the schools of having rigged admissions processes.

UT-Austin spokesperson J.B. Bird responded to the lawsuit, initially filed by Stanford University students in a California court, by saying school officials were also "outraged" by the alleged fraud. He said UT has a "thorough, holistic admissions process" and that the actions taken by one school official implicated in the scandal "do not reflect our admissions process."

That employee, men's tennis coach Michael Center, was placed on leave, then fired Wednesday after being accused of taking a six-figure bribe to help one applicant gain entrance to UT as a tennis recruit.

Center's lawyer has repeatedly said his client is innocent.

The state's Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has also called on Texas schools to review their admissions policies "to make sure that nothing like this either is happening or can happen."

UT officials say they are doing so across the system.

"We are committed to ensuring integrity in the admissions process and doing all we can to prevent crimes like this from occurring in the future," said Chancellor James B. Milliken.

Still, it's not the first time the school has been accused of having a side door in its admissions process for wealthy or connected students.

Not long after Hall was appointed to the UT System Board of Regents in 2011, he began leveling a series of complaints against then UT-Austin President Bill Powers - including a claim that Powers had helped well-connected applicants gain entrance to the university even if their academic credentials did not measure up.

The system could be likened to " affirmative action for the advantaged," according to a 2015 report commissioned by the university system to address the controversy. Although there was no evidence of "quid pro quo," no "inappropriate promise" of admission and no violation of the law, the report said the university had a practice of using "holds" - which barred certain applicants from being rejected without notifying a dean or the president's office. It identified 73 students who got into UT-Austin over five years despite having grade point averages below 2.9 and combined SAT scores of less than 1100.

At the time, Powers said that virtually every selective university had a similar process in place and that he was acting in what he believed to be the best interest of UT when he intervened on behalf of applicants.

But the dispute was lengthy and contentious. Legislators accused Hall of pursuing a "witch hunt" against Powers and burdening the university with onerous and time-consuming requests for reams of sensitive information. During a long battle that often had partisan overtones, Hall was asked to resign by fellow regents, censured by lawmakers and criticized (but not charged) by a grand jury - all while Gov. Rick Perry and other conservatives applauded him and said he was simply performing his oversight role.

Ultimately Hall, a Perry appointee, finished out his six-year term in early 2017.

The 2015 report compiled by Kroll Associates noted that university officials frequently face immense pressure to favor applicants in the admissions process and that "money and influence are always significant factors."

"At UT-Austin, the President is expected to raise large amounts of money, cultivate donors and alumni, and maintain positive relations with the state legislature," the report said. "Some believe, therefore, that any factor that advances the interests of the university is fair game and can be taken into consideration when conducting a holistic review of a particular applicant."

After the report was published, the UT system revised its admissions policy to add guardrails to how and when a university president can override other administrators to admit students "who might not otherwise be admitted through the normal process."

Decisions to do so should be "very rare," in the university's "best interest" and limited to students qualified to pursue the degrees they are applying for, the new rules say.

The president must discuss the decisions with the chancellor, and the rationale "shall be documented."

Karen Adler, a spokeswoman for the UT System, said "reports have been made to the chancellor on fewer than a dozen admissions for all eight academic institutions since the rule was instituted in 2015." A spokesman for UT-Austin said the flagship complies with the policy. Both declined to answer more specific questions.

Hall called the regents' rule a "joke" and said it lacked transparency.

"If a university wants to sell seats, auction them and be upfront about it. For example, tell the public, 'We're going to sell 200 admission slots because we need money for the university,' " he said. "Maintaining the 'black box' approach where nobody gets to know how we let people in is ridiculous - it's also almost always corrupt. The focus should be on transparent and objective admissions."
Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them

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After new admissions scandal, former Regent Wallace Hall says University of Texas' rules are a "joke"

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Hall led a heated battle to reform the school's admissions procedures, which led to reforms in 2015. But after a UT tennis coach was accused of taking a bribe to help a student gain admission, Hall says more needs to be done.

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After researching current legal & ethical issues in higher education, the population & issue that I will be focusing on is students who undergo hazing. I chose this topic because I have witnessed first-hand the effects hazing can have on a student's academic pursuit,  emotional development, & mental stability.

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Step 4: Angelo State University Hazing in Higher Education Article

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Step 4: Angelo State University Hazing in Higher Education Article

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The article explores the current state statutes on hazing & the loopholes found in some states' hazing definitions

References
Brucknew, H. (2018). Students fall victim to hazing epidemic: Unity at what cost? Touro Law Review, 34(2), 459-493. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.easydb.angelo.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=b8db32e7-0ab6-4989-a7f6-7e7b2dce8130%40sessionmgr102

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In this article, the author interviews Alexandra Robbins, author of Fraternity: An Inside Look at a Year of College Boys Becoming Men, and attempts to understand why hazing is still so predominant and what factors contribute to it.

References
Bauer-Wolf, J. (2019). Ending toxic culture in fraternities. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/30/author-talks-fraternity-hazing-and-stamping-it-out-upcoming-book

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Hazing is a significant issue in higher education that has persisted for decades.  While some students feel that they cannot speak out against the “tradition,” other students do not realize that they are being hazed or believe that the actions required from them are acceptable because the want to earn their letters.  While some hazing actions seem fairly harmless compared to others, the action of forcing a student to complete a task in order to be a part of a family-like organization is mentally & emotionally painful & staggering.  This, in addition to the possible physical exhaustion, can have a toll on the student’s academic performance, the initiative to joining the institution in the first place.  With such a significant impact on students’ growth & development, hazing needs to be properly combatted & researched.

At this time, only forty-four states have anti-hazing laws & there is not a set policy across the board for all institutions.  Instead, policies are often determined by the institutions based on their specific needs.  This allows organizations & institutions Though hazing has been a consistent topic in higher education, solutions and reflections have not been offered.  Generally hazing prevention solely relies on the members of the organization & the organization’s advisor.  While every member does have the opportunity to change the atmosphere of hazing, it should not solely rely on these students.  Students in these organizations are young adults who are still developing their identity.  With the proper support from their Office of Greek Life/Student Involvement as well as the institution as a whole, the environment for hazing can be changed. The organization coupled with the institution’s effort to make changes to not only prevention but reflection & action plans can be the start of effective changes to this continuing issue.